Honduras: Part Five

On our last full day in Utila, we could not dive so we spent the day wandering around the island looking for adventure. We packed up our snorkel gear and our very empty can of bug spray, fired up the golf cart and set out to get lost...on another really freakin' hot day. Along the way we stopped for some supply at the local "7-11" - well it says so on Samantha's sign! No slurpees...which is probably a good thing because I would have been tempted to get in it. We toyed with the idea of buying another can of bug spray...but after all we were leaving in less than 24 hours so why bother. That's a "here's your sign" moment. This would be the day I captured most of my 101 mosquito bites. Luuuucky me.


We found a whole grove of these goofy trees that I couldn't resist belloring "stop! stop! i need to take a picture". Most of the island is covered in untouched jungle and while our adventure was fun, I was glad to not run into any monstrous spiders that usually live in untouched jungle. :)


OK. So, I need to digress a couple days. In the middle of the week, our golf cart died on the side of the road as we were racing to our morning dive. We had well over a mile to go and all of our scuba gear was with us...there was no way were going to make it. Thankfully our neighbors (the Americans from the boat over) came wizzing by on their golf cart and we thumbed a ride. Once we got to the dock we called Anuk (the dive master that also worked with our groundskeeper, Angel...i told you it's a small island) and she worked her Espaniol magic and told Angel where to find our dead ride. By the time we got back that day it was fixed and waiting for us...but in need of fuel. Our neighbors informed us where to find the petrol guy. Fast forward back to Friday. We went in search of said petrol guy. Now. There are no gas stations on the island so you just have to find this guy (hopefully he's home) and barter up some fuel. Gas there is held in any kind of container that will hold it. It's common to see kids riding their bikes with Coke two liters full of gas to take home, etc.. When we figured out we had only enough to buy 1/2 gallon out came our order...in a really big rum bottle. He whipped out a funnel and glug, glug, glug - viola petrol. Turns out the golf cart was leaking gas so our golf cart took us all over the island and finally died here...reeeeally far from town. With snorkel gear. And no bug spray. Let the walking commence...


We saw the developing side of the island at a nice leisurely pace (our house was at the extreme opposite end of the island at this point). We came across some American residents out front of their mansions and I tried to work my charm and charisma in order to thumb another ride but it only got us about 1/2 mile closer to town because that's as far as their house was. When it's 100 degrees outside, a 1/2 mile ride is a God send. So a couple miles later we were nearly there...at least we were able to dump our gear at the dive shop in town. Welcome to hotville.


Just one of the sites as we neared home base...it's not uncommon to find piles of rejected stuff in random places.


Some of the interesting shoreline we found on the east side of the island...shortly before getting stuck.


This is the public beach on the way back to our place. It was rather sparsely populated all week which was surprising because it's a really great beach far enough outside of town to be nice and private. There was a small straw hut bar across the way only open at night and that was about it. I think we saw at most 10 people there all week.


After finally getting the cart back and all settled back at the beach house the napping commenced. We were too pooped to even go out to dinner that night so we had leftovers and breakfast bars for dinner and got some last good snorkeling in. As per usual the sun set on our final day as a spectacular storm rolled in...